Found Mounds III…

‘…One of the stops we did manage to make on the way to our second ‘official sojourn’ in Glastonbury was, Merlin’s Mound.

Now, Merlin’s Mound you might have thought would be a well-known tourist attraction boasting hundreds of thousands of visitors a year just like its Big-Sister Mound of Sil-Bury Hill, so called because late legend has a king called Sil buried there along with his treasure, a golden horse.

Not so.

Quite why this is not the case it is difficult to fathom although one possible reason is that Merlin’s Mound is hidden within the grounds of Marlborough College which is a private school.

Of course, there is nothing actually buried in Silbury Hill because it isn’t a burial mound at all and the Golden Horse is far more likely to refer to the sun which, knowing the folk responsible for its construction, probably set behind the hill from one of the other sites in the area, or seemingly rose from it, and I did not learn that at any school, private or otherwise…

“Which would make it Sol-Bury Hill, anyway,” says Wen.

…Now, I was lucky enough to come across Merlin’s Mound because I attended a conference in the grounds of the college and I have to say I was astonished to learn of its existence but not half as astonished as I was to learn of its size.

In fact for a long time I was fairly sure that although Silbury Hill was regarded as Merlin’s Bigger Sister, size wise, there was not an awful lot in it.

“Silbury Hill is much bigger,” says Wen.

“I’m not so sure.”

“Much bigger, Merlin’s Mound only looks comparable because it dwarfs the buildings that currently hide it so effectively.”

“I don’t think there’s much in it.”

“What does Silbury Hill have to give it scale?”

“No, there’s not a lot else in the vicinity is there.”

“This is one reason why accurate measurement is so important.”

But anyway, and more importantly than accurate measurement of any kind, work is currently ongoing in the renovation of Merlin’s Mound and we are able to walk two-thirds the way around its newly refurbished spiral path-way and I have to say although it was something of a disappointment not to be able to get all the way to top in other ways it was not such a bad thing after all for just getting two thirds the way up was giving me a rather ‘heady’ feeling.

“I know,” says Wen. “Me too. What’s the line in, ‘A House on the River’ when Aeth’s troop, in all their glory, is approaching the strong-hold of Aillil Silver-Tongue and Sweet-Mouthed Maeve?”

“My head may as well be in a vat full of wine…”

“My head may as well be a vat full of wine,” laughs Wen, and I laugh too.

‘The structure was planned as a three-dimensional ‘spider’s web’, with walls of ‘un-cemented’ chalk blocks representing the radial and concentric elements, while the interstices were packed with small-grade chalk rubble. In elevation this web was a tiered structure of six well defined steps’ – ‘The Silbury Treasure’, Michael Dames.

Thanks, it led me to start exploring. I read the wikipedia entry on Silbury Hill, kinda funny how various authorities have poked and prodded the mound over the centuries – understandable really. Fascinating that it was constructed c.2400–2300 BC and took 18 million man-hours, equivalent to 500 men working for 15 years. Not possible for a Neolithic tribal structure, more like a theocratic power elite with broad-ranging control across southern Britain. What kind of power structure could that have been?

I see, well I think I’m just waking up to what this means, excuse my naivety. Really… I assumed that Neolithic tribal structure was capable of building it, I see now it’s not the case. So you mean all the mounds and circles in Britain were built in this (mysterious) way?

All the mounds and circles in the British Isles display a commonality of design and (presumed) function or purpose. They all also conform to a standard measure, ‘The Megalithic Yard’, which was re-discovered by Oxford Engineer Alexander Thom, in the late sixties, and verified by subsequent researchers including, most recently, Robin Heath.

Weekend Workshop 2018

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